Summer 1999. Lily. Goddess. Internet. Disconnect. Welcome to the Ether. Long before Tumblr, Myspace or anything offering salvation from the void, teenage obsessives find escape in message boards dedicated to a mysterious, “Bjork-like chanteuse” named Lily. While at once tracing their very online lives, writer-director Shunji Iwai turns his camera on all manners of hell kids get up to in the Japanese countryside. From shoplifting to extreme bullying to illicit sex work — this resolutely original piece of pre-social media cinema sees the messy world of junior high students set against a steady thrum of keyboard taps. Over twenty years on, from Instagram reels to TikTok stitches, ALL ABOUT LILY CHOU-CHOU continues to resonate with anyone who has ever typed #aesthetic or used the internet as a coping mechanism — in other words: everyone.

In Japanese with English subtitles.